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Matthew Kives

Instructor: Dr. Colleen English

UCWR 110: Writing Responsibly

28 March 2020

Sick Woman Dignity

Johanna Hedva reccounts the agonizing struggles of living with a chronic illness in her essay, “Sick Woman Theory.” Hedva ties her own challenges to the many challenges that the disabled community and all of the un-cared for face. The many views on social justice and political theory laid out in Hedva’s work can be related to the contrasting Libertarian and

Kantian notions of self-ownership discussed in Michael J. Sandel’s Justice. Johanna Hedva’s

“Sick Woman Theory” expresses her Kantian rejection of self-ownership through her argument for justice from human dignity and .

Both Johanna Hedva’s “Sick Woman Theory” and Michael J. Sandel’s Justice are rooted in their authors’ ideas on social justice and political theory. Sandel’s Justice addresses the primary mainstream philosophical ideas that guide our political discussions, attempting to draw them into a new discussion on social justice that incorporates our ideas on “the good life.” “Sick

Woman Theory” similarly relates philosophical and political ideas into an essay that advocates for the “violently un-cared for” and chronically ill (Hedva 1).

Justice outlines libertarian theory in Sandel’s chapter “Do We Own

Ourselves/.” According to Sandel, the idea of self-ownership is “the moral crux of the libertarian claim” (Sandel 65). Sandel analyses the “fundamental right to ” that libertarians uphold in the name of human freedom (Sandel 59,60). He first explains how “The libertarian philosophy does not map neatly onto the political spectrum,” contrasting its left- Kives 2 leaning social doctrine with the capitalist that it advocates (Sandel 61). The libertarian philosophy itself is centered on the idea of through self-ownership as its basis for human . Sandel masterfully summarizes the essence of the libertarian philosophy when theoretically stating “If I own my body, my life, and my person, I should free to do whatever I want with them (provided I don’t harm others)” (Sandel 70).

Justice also outlines Kantian Theory in Sandel’s chapter, “What Matters is the

Motive/Immanuel Kant.” While Kant was concerned with many philosophical questions, Sandel shines a light on the importance of Kant’s ideas on self-ownership. Sandel explains how Kant’s theory “connects justice to freedom,” as opposed to connecting it with the collective good or virtue (Sandel 105). Sandel makes clear that Kant’s definition of freedom is different from the libertarian idea of freedom that is based on self-ownership and freedom of choice. Sandel describes how Kant’s definition of freedom is based on our human dignity and capacity to reason. According to Sandel, Kant’s approach to justice “does not depend on the idea that we own ourselves,” but rather, on the idea that we are rational beings” (Sandel 104).

While “Sick Woman Theory” at its heart is an emotional tribute to the disabled community and all human beings who have been un-cared for and unseen, Hedva draws her story and the stories of others into a political argument for the justice of the “Sick Woman.” Hedva begins by recounting the day of a Black Lives Matter protest near her home that she was too debilitated by her illness to join. She discusses this incident and opens up a dialogue on Hannah

Ardent’s definition of the political “as being any action that is performed in public” (Hedva 1).

Hedva dismantles Ardent’s definition in defense of “all the other invisible bodies, with their fists up, tucked away out of sight” (Hedva 1). Hedva declares that “of course, everything you do in Kives 3 private is political,” giving meaning to the actions and beliefs of all people while implying that this idea should have been obvious all along.

Additionally, Hedva’s discussions on the self can be tied to her ideas on political theory and social justice. Hedva opens her discussion stating, “Before I can speak of the sick woman in her many guises, I must first speak as an individual” (Hedva 3). Hedva details her struggles with bipolar disorder, panic disorder, and depersonalization disorder, claiming that she lives “between this world and another one, one created by my own brain that has ceased to be contained by a discrete concept of ‘self,’” seemingly differentiating the concept of her “self” from her supposedly fundamental freedom of choice (Hedva 3).

Although a champion of the rights of the individual in regards to her belief that we “resist the notion that one needs to be legitimated by an institution;” Hedva clearly does not align with the Libertarian notion of self-ownership, instead often invoking the Kantian ideas of human dignity that are his basis for human autonomy (Hedva 4). Hedva ties Kant’s philosophy of human dignity to a political argument that champions “those who are faced with their vulnerability and unbearable fragility, every day, and so have to fight for their experience to not only be honored, but first made visible” (Hedva 4). Hedva’s foremost call for honor and visibility is inherently Kantian in the sense that it prioritizes human dignity as the chief requirement for justice.

Hedva draws this Kantian idea of human dignity to another political rejection of libertarianism, with her call for capitalism to “screech to its much-needed, long overdue, and motherfucking glorious halt” (Hedva 6). While Hedva does sometimes appear to reject the libertarian idea of capitalism on somewhat utilitarian grounds, she no doubt echoes Kant in motive when declaring that “The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to care for Kives 4 yourself” (Hedva 6). Regardless of Hedva’s political stance, her philosophy is Kantian in its essence as she is a champion of social justice through reason, human dignity, and of course a genuine caring for all people.

As Sandel explains, Kant “insists that we do not own ourselves,” and puts forth the

“moral requirement that we treat persons as ends rather than mere means” (Sandel 130).

Furthermore, Kant draws this rejection of self-ownership to state that “acting autonomously requires that we treat ourselves with respect” (Sandel 131). This Kantian notion that justice, through human freedom, comes from respect for ourselves and one another is a corner stone of

Johanna Hedva’s “Sick Woman Theory.” Hedva’s work is not only “an insistence that modes of political protest are internalized, lived, and embodied, suffering, and no doubt invisible,” but an insistence that that all persons have a right to political protest by way of our capacity to reason as opposed to our self-ownership.

In conclusion, Johanna Hedva’s “Sick Woman Theory” expresses the Kantian rejection of libertarian self-ownership that Michael Sandel lays out in Justice. Both Immanuel Kant and

Johanna Hedva champion the rights of the individual through human freedom as opposed to the libertarian ideal of self-ownership. Perhaps one of the most powerful illustrations of the connection between Hedva and Kant is seen with Kant’s case on moral duty. As Sandel details,

Kant describes “a hopeless, miserable person so filled with despair that he has no desire to go on living,” stating “If such a person summons the will to preserve his life, not from inclination but from duty, then his act has moral worth” (Sandel 114). Kant’s example illustrates the true value and moral worth of the sick woman’s silent protest, cementing the philosophy that “the good deed be done because it is the right thing to do” (Sandel 115).

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Works Cited

Hedva, Johanna. “Sick Woman Theory.” Mask Magazine, 2017, www.maskmagazine.com/not-

again/struggle/sick-woman-theory.

Sandel, Michael J. Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.